Up in Smoke
by KingFisher01
Summary: “I’m tellin’ ya he’s gone!  Gone!”  His voice screeched.  “The Sarge!”  His voice was cracking with overrun emotions.  “He was runnin’ over there by them trees tryin’ to get to cover when an 88 came in.  All that’s left is smoke.”


_No infringement upon the rightful owners of "Combat!" and the characters thereof, is intended. This piece of fan fiction is for enjoyment only, and in no way will the author gain monetary profit from its existence._

_**Up in Smoke**_ _by King Fisher_

"I'm tellin' ya he's gone! Gone!" His voice screeched.

"Calm down Kirby. Who's gone?" Caje was taken back by the edge and panic in Kirby's voice.

"The Sarge!" His voice was cracking with over-run emotions. "He was runnin' over there by them trees tryin' to get to cover when an 88 came in. All that's left is smoke."

"How do you know he _didn't_ get to cover?" Hanley demanded.

"I was watchin' 'im, Lieutenant. I was gonna follow right behind 'im." Kirby grimaced as Doc poured sulfa on his shoulder. "I was watchin' 'im…" Kirby's voice trailed off.

Doc moved Kirby's shirt down his arm a bit to get access to the wound. Kirby grunted as Doc wound the gauze around his shoulder, but he didn't make much else in the way of noise.

Hanley looked over at Doc with a question in his eyes.

"It's just a graze, Lieutenant. Skidded along the bone though. It's gonna make it hard for him to use the BAR."

"I can shoot just fine!" Kirby yelled. He wriggled away from Doc. His entire body fluctuated between anger and despair. Pain just wasn't registering to him at the moment. He was angry that the Krauts had taken out the Sarge so completely. At the same time he felt a hole through his heart that was filled with fear. _Sarge had been their foundation. He kept them safe._ _If he wasn't here, what the Hell would happen to them?_

Hanley looked out to where a thin column of smoke was rising into the air. From this ditch he couldn't see much of what was around the impact crater. _Had Saunders made it to safety or did Kirby really see Saunders blown into thin air? _A shiver went down his back. This wasn't the first man he had lost and it wouldn't be the last. It might be the hardest.

The Germans were keeping the pressure on this piece of real estate. Their infantry fought to push the Americans back to the other side of the river. Both sides wanted access to this river crossing. Just a big creek really, but mucky and muddy in most places and where not impassible with muck, it had high banks. This was one of the few places the river had low sloping sides that were fairly firm. Tanks could cross here without too much trouble.

"Caje." The scout moved up to his lieutenant. Hanley spoke softly so only Caje could hear. "Take these glasses and slip out over to that knoll. See what you can…see. Just look to see if…if Kirby's right." He didn't want to say what he was thinking - see if there's anything left to the man. As much as Hanley wanted Saunders alive - he didn't want to see him mortally wounded and be unable to reach him. _Lord, let him be dead or let him be hiding!_

"Doc - you're with Kirby. Move over to that hole to the left."

"Lieutenant, let me go look…"

"Can it, Kirby - I'm not in the mood." Hanley looked back to the medic. "Doc, as long as he can fire that BAR he can stay. If you decide he can't fire that rifle, and Kirby, I do mean if Doc decides you can't, then Doc, you get him back to the rear. Got it?"

"Yes sir." the medic replied.

"Kirby?" Hanley waited a moment. "Do I need to send you back now?"

"No, sir." The private said with a soft voice. "I got it. Sir." He'd find a chance to go look for his sergeant.

-----------------------------------

_He felt nothing and everything - all at the same time. His body was numb, yet he felt a great crushing pressure pushing him farther into the ground. He smelled the salty, acid sweat of men's bodies, the coppery and salty odor of pools of blood, yet his mind couldn't process where it was from. His body felt as if it was swelling up like a balloon and at the same time he felt crushed into nothingness. There were things on him, but he couldn't tell what. He wasn't sure he was breathing. He wasn't sure what he felt or what he was. _

_He knew he was alone. And alone meant death. If he wasn't dead already, he soon would be. Being alone and not being able to feel or understand what was going around you meant sure death. That he did know. He tried to get his body parts to move but they didn't respond. He wasn't sure he had any body parts left. There wasn't any feeling anywhere. He couldn't see. Maybe it was night? He listened intently. He didn't hear anything. No birds, no shells, no harps. If he were in Hell, wouldn't he have heard the flames? _

_He closed his mind and fell back into blackness._

-----------------------------------

Caje carefully made his way back through the line to a small knoll just this side of the river crossing. He lay under a clump of bushes and strained to find the shell hole. The smoke trail was less now, but he found it. Body parts were strewn about the area. He counted three boots with ragged pant legs and parts of legs jutting out of them. He saw a field jacket with what looked to be a hand coming out of one of the sleeves - but no sergeant's stripes. He then saw another arm with only part of the former shirt covering it. Not enough of that one left to even have a place for stripes.

Caje's stomach began to churn. He was going to get sick. He turned away and emptied his breakfast of canned eggs onto the ground.

_Sarge? Where are you?_

He went back to the glasses and scanned a little farther from the shell hole. _Maybe it was the wrong hole. Maybe… _His stomach started to churn again. His heart went cold. A camouflaged helmet lay on its side. _How many people wore those? Maybe it wasn't the Sarge's. Maybe…_

He scanned around the area. No place that he could see for cover. But it was hard to tell at this angle.

If he could find something that held out hope…. _How was he going to tell Hanley what he saw and still keep enough hope alive for the lieutenant to allow them to go up to the impact crater?_ As he formulated a story in his head he saw his sergeant's face in his mind. The Sarge was scowling at him.

_Sarge,_ Caje said to himself, _you can't just expect us to leave without really knowing?_

The Saunders in his head raised his hand to gesture at him. The scowl turned angry. Caje began to think about the wounded Kirby, the Germans pouring over bombed-out land in front of them and the need to keep this river crossing. Retrieving a dead Saunders, if there even was something to retrieve, was the least of Hanley's worries. Their mission was to keep the river crossing in American control.

_Yeah, yeah,_ Caje told the sergeant invading his head, _I tell the lieutenant what I saw and then I trust him. _

With a sigh, the scout put away the field glasses and made his way back up to the front of the action.

-----------------------------------

_He woke up to a voice calling. _

"_Sarge? Where are you?"_

_But he couldn't hear it with his ears. He heard it inside of him, somewhere inside of him - that he knew. But it wasn't out loud. Somewhere inside what was left of him registered that someone, something was calling for him. Looking for him. _

"_Over here" his mind said. What his mind said did not make it to his lips. He couldn't feel his lips. He couldn't feel his face. Yet he could sense his body throbbing. _

"_I'm over here." He tried again. "Please, don't leave me." _

-----------------------------------

Kirby lay in the depression in the ground in a strange silence. Doc lay next to him, also peeking over the edge of the hole. It was hard to say if the hole was from a shell or if it was hand-dug. It definitely had been used before. Each occupant had taken a little more out here or there to accommodate their size and where they needed to watch.

Kirby looked out over the landscape and tried not to think. He tried not to see the dust cloud from the shell impact with the earth - the shell that destroyed his sergeant. He had to admit, he didn't see the sergeant explode. That thought was grisly. The bullet that took off skin and bone on his shoulder had impacted at about the same time. He did lose sight of the Sarge for a moment. He had been so focused on watching the Sarge's path to those trees - he just couldn't figure out how the Sarge could not have been hit. He had seen chunks of things - chunks of human bodies hit the earth after the shell exploded. _Where did those come from if not from the Sarge?_

Coldness crept through Kirby. It was like the fear you felt just before a big battle. A fight that you knew was coming and that you knew was going to be hard and long. But the cold didn't drift off like it did during a battle. This cold settled in and hung around his entire being. His eyes were beginning to sting. _Damn, all this dirt in his eyes. He was going to look like he was bawling. And he was hungry dammit!_

His mind drifted to food. One of the best meals he had ever had was when he was being court-martialed. Saunders and Caje had brought him a mess kit full of kraut bullet casings.He smiled. They had saved his butt - vindicated him._ And how had he paid the Sarge back? He had been a pain in the ass. Ducking work. Always complaining. Never helping._ Sarge didn't deserve this. He deserved to make it home. The loss tore at Kirby. He needed those damn Germans to make their move. He needed to kill somebody. He needed to do damage. _He'd make up for it. He'd do his best and make the Sarge proud of him._ _He'd take out the entire damn platoon of Krauts…_

In Kirby's head Saunders smirked at him and shook his head in frustration. Kirby could feel Saunders' disappointment. Kirby glared back at the Saunders invading his thoughts. _What?_ thought Kirby. _What's your problem?_ He knew the Sarge didn't think much of his anger. Kirby's anger was going to get him killed. _Who made you so smart!_ Kirby jeered at him. _Hell, you're not much older than Nelson! You're just a kid yourself. Went and got yourself killed. For what?_ Saunders' image just smiled at him. Kirby's mind screamed. _Sarge! You can't leave me! _Saunders kept the smirk on his face and just waited out the private's tirade.

Kirby's inner voice softened. _You're like a brother to me, Sarge. Who'll be there for us?_ The sergeant silently just shook his head with patience and understanding. His bearing and strength permeated the distance between him and Kirby. Kirby felt that strength seep into his cold body. He began to understand. _Yeah, I know_,_ Sarge. We need to complete the mission. Keep our minds on the mission. _Kirby smiled at the Saunders in his head. _I can do it, Sarge._

-----------------------------------

_Someone was arguing with him. He could feel the anger and the fear. He felt their desperation. 'You can't leave me!' it cried. _

_I'm trying not to leave you, he said in frustration. I just don't know where I'm at. I'm trying to come back. _

_The entity ranted at him. He began to get angry with it. What did it want from him anyhow? He had done his best. He tried to keep his men safe and get the mission done. The mission had to get done otherwise what purpose was there in being out here? What purpose was there in any of the deaths?_

_The entity began to quiet down. It seemed to hear his thoughts. It began to be calm. As the entity calmed, it drifted away from his hearing._

_Wait! He yelled to no one. Come back. I can't find you!_

_I can't find me. _

-----------------------------------

Hanley was having a difficult time keeping his thoughts straight. He didn't have time to grieve right now. He needed to keep focused on the Krauts on the other side of the pockmarked field. _How much longer before they tried to make another push? How much longer before his own tanks showed up to reinforce and defend this river crossing?_ _Hell if they wanted to use it, they should be here to defend it! _

He needed a better plan. He was so used to discussing his thoughts with the sergeant… _Damn,_ he thought. _Saunders wasn't going to critique his plan today. Not today; not tomorrow._ All that expertise, all that experience, gone. _Where was he going to get another experienced squad leader? Another sounding board? _Squad leader he'd find; Caje would fit the bill. Hell half the time Saunders was gone Caje filled in anyway.Saunders had confidence in the man - Hanley would too.

He looked over the field in front of him. Their line was holding. In between the waves of firing he thought he could hear the clanking of tanks behind him. It was soft and fairly far off. They might be here in another 30 minutes. Another 30 minutes after that they should have the German line pushed back. Maybe far enough back that they could search the field for dead and wounded. His thoughts turned to the area where Saunders had caught the shell. That was at the point farthest from the American lines. _How long before he could get over there?_

Hanley shook himself mentally. _Mind on the task. You're not some green recruit._ In his mind he could see his sergeant smiling, hunkered down in the hole next to him, sucking on a smoke. The sergeant said nothing but nodded his head. _Yeah, I know Saunders, focus._

-----------------------------------

_He felt a rumbling in the ground. That's what brought him back to thinking. He surfaced slowly and noticed that he felt pain. The pain radiated from somewhere deep inside him. His mind searched for understanding. Focus, he told himself. You need to figure out what's going on around you. _

_Slowly, the pain began to take shape. It grew out of his core - his bones. He was starting to feel each one. Each one radiated with an ache like he had hit his funny bone - that intense but dull pain that could make you crazy. He became more and more aware of the sensation of pain and the rumbling beneath the ground. His mind felt separated from his body - like an outside observer. He knew he was feeling pain, but his mind didn't know what to do about it. _

_The rumbling began to have a sharp sound to it. A metallic clanking. He noticed he could hear. He could hear and it hurt. Every sound reverberated in his head like he was standing next to the engine in one of the ships he had been ferried around from home to here; from one theater to another. So loud the men in the spaces went deaf. It hurt to be there for long. He longed for the silence of earlier. His mind was beginning to put things together. The pain from his bones was being sorted and cataloged by his brain. It was starting to build to the point where he couldn't think of anything but the pain. _

_The rumbling began to be accompanied by pings and small cracks. The sound echoed in his head and made him cringe. He needed to do something - but what? _

-----------------------------------

"Pull up behind those tanks! Use 'em for cover!" Hanley had jumped up out of the foxhole and was calling his men forward. Forward toward the other side of the field of holes. The tanks provided cover and a barrage of artillery. The Germans shrank from the rolling guns. The smell of death was everywhere. Blood, sulfur, cordite - the smells all drifted upwards in the residual smoke from the guns.

The Germans retreated. The tanks set up guard. Americans began come in small waves across the river to shore up the foothold.

Hanley grabbed Caje. "Count noses. Get them all together over there."

Caje looked expectantly at his lieutenant.

"I don't want everyone to have to see it, Caje. Let me check it out first." Caje just nodded wearily.

"Doc," Hanley called. "Come with me."

Caje deftly caught Kirby and threw him gently back down in the foxhole. Kirby sagged. The effort of firing the big rifle for so long was catching up to him and his abused shoulder. _He was going to do it right this time. He would listen to Caje - without the protest. _

Hanley led Doc over to the shell hole. Doc bent over and cautiously picked up the camouflaged helmet. Turning it over he looked inside and found two chocolate bars. His shoulders sagged.

"It's his, Lieutenant." His voice was heavy with disappointment.

Hanley nodded. He had already known that.He didn't need to verify it by looking for the candy stash._ Who else had a helmet like that?_

"Stay here, Doc." It was a direct order.

Hanley stepped to the edge of the crater. Bodies were thrown about like trash in the bottom and sides of the hole. He strained to find something that was identifiable as a single, whole human. Something drew him down into the grisly mess. As he pushed aside the legs and torso, he felt his stomach begin to go sour. _He needed to get out of this hole. Nothing was alive in here. Nothing moved. Nothing was whole._

Using his foot he pushed aside more of the broken flesh. Then he saw the stripes. _Three stripes._ Hanley pushed the rest of the gore away. The body was whole. Face down, it was entirely intact. The blond hair a bright crimson, the uniform no longer brown, but red. He reached for the dog tags. The skin was warm.

The lieutenant stood up quickly without the targeted tag. _How long had it been since the man had been hit? Hours. Was the body warm because it was decomposing or warm because…_

He reached back down and felt along the neck. He knew his hand was shaking, but from the gore or the excitement? Hanley pressed his fingers harder against the neck.

"Doc! Here. Now!"

The medic skidded to a stop at the top of the hole. He stared into the horror and took a step back. His lieutenant was a bloody mess.

"Lieutenant - are you hurt?"

"I think he might be alive." Hanley sounded confused. Doc looked at him with concern. _And why shouldn't the lieutenant be confused. He just saw one of his closest buddies in pieces. _

"It's OK, Lieutenant, come on out and let's take a look at you."

"No Doc, I mean Saunders may be alive."

"Lieutenant…" Doc said calmly.

"Doc! I am not losing it!" The officer said in a strong voice. Stronger than he thought he had within him. And then softer, as if still shocked by the possibility, "I think I may feel a pulse… in his neck."

Doc looked further down into the pit. He had to really look to distinguish between the parts of humans and the whole human laying at the bottom of the pit. He didn't know if it was Saunders or not… _Well what did that really matter - he was a medic._

Doc slid down into the grisly, red hole. He picked his way around the appendages that didn't seem to belong to anything. He moved up to the body his lieutenant was leaning over. His hand went to the man's neck. It was warm. _But it had been so long…not long enough to decompose… Shit!_ he thought, _this guy's alive!_ He felt a single pulse. Then another.

"Lieutenant - help me get him out of here! I don't know how he's breathing with his face in the dirt!"

The scream from the bloodied man wasn't loud, but it was not expected. After all, he was supposed to be dead. It sent them both butt down in the dirt and gore, with their hearts racing from the horror movie playing out in front of them.

Doc got his breath back first. "Hold on, Lieutenant. Let's try to roll him over slowly."

The second cry of pain they were ready for.

Doc began to check the man from head to toe looking for holes, blood that was his own or obvious broken bones. "We need to get him out of here, Lieutenant, I can't do anything for him in this mess." There wasn't enough room. And there was way too much blood. But moving him, just touching him, seemed to cause the man intense pain. Doc didn't like the looks of it. His eyes told Hanley that.

_Great,_ thought Hanley in a near panic. _He's alive and we're going to kill him getting him out of here. _

"Lieutenant," said the medic as he pulled at some of Saunders' clothing, "I think he's just got a lot of contusions, probably a bad concussion. I don't see any wounds - but it's hard with all this blood! He may be bleeding internally. 'e needs a hospital and quick."

Hanley looked over the bloody, earth-covered man. "He must have been close, just like Kirby thought. All he got was the force of the blast, none of the shrapnel."

Hanley sighed. _Alive._ He took a deep breath. He noticed Saunders' eyes were open. They were staring out into space.

"Doc…"

"Yeah, I know, Lieutenant, I don't think he can see. That might be from the force of the blast. He's got bruises head to toe 's my guess. I'm not sure he can hear either. He's not really said anything, other than from us movin' 'im."

_Great._ Once again the lieutenant kept his thoughts to himself. _He's alive, but not amongst the living. Now what? _

-----------------------------------

_The pain was excruciating! The very fibers of his muscles screamed when the disembodied hands touched them. They moved around him like he wasn't there. He had to show them he was alive. Somehow he knew it mattered whether these people were friends or not. But he wasn't sure how to tell the difference. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear. All he could do was feel the pain that radiated through his head, legs and arms. At least that was better than before when he wasn't sure he had any legs or arms. _

_I'm alive! he screamed at the forms that groped him. But nothing came past his lips. He strained to find the air in his lungs and push it out to make some kind of noise. At the same time the forms above him rolled him over. It was enough to cause his lungs to suck in more air than they had in them in hours. The pain from their pulling him out of whatever had him trapped wiped all thoughts from his head. _

_As he came back to consciousness he could still feel the forms tugging at him. _

_Oh please don't move me again he begged in his mind. But the forms couldn't hear him. They pulled at him until his mind filled with throbbing from his muscles and bones. Then it stopped. He tried to open his eyes. I'm alive! He tried to tell them though his silence. In desperation he tried to show them some kind of sign that he was amongst the living. He tried to open his eyes and see. When they tugged at him again, his mind relaxed in the realization that they must realize he was alive and they were moving him. It lasted only moments, for when they began to drag his body up the slope, the torment was too much, and he slid back into darkness. _

-----------------------------------

Kirby sat on a small chair next to Saunders' bed in the Evac Hospital. Saunders had been transitioning from shades of red, blue and purple to green and yellow a result of the bruising from the blast. His skin had a slight yellow tinge from the jaundice that lingered from the internal bleeding. It could have been much worse. His hair was a normal color of wheat, no longer the bright red it had been when Doc and the lieutenant had pulled him from the crater. It looked strange against the yellowish skin.

The kidneys were working, the doctor said. Liver was fine. It would all work itself out in a week or so. Everything would work itself out, if only the Sarge would wake up. That part no one was really sure about.

The blast had more than addled his brain. The doctor had called it swelling. Too much pressure and nowhere to go. The brain cells just died. And you didn't get new ones like you did skin. Saunders was just a body. The man that made the body alive was gone. All his life squished out of him; yet his body still lived.

Kirby watched the man next to him breath. Easy breaths - in and out. Sometimes the eyes were open. Sometimes they weren't. Doctor said it didn't matter - it was just a physical response. The Sarge's open eyes didn't mean there was anyone left inside his brain. Kirby's anger began to build. Other than a few bruises and that strange tan, Sarge didn't look much different than he had before the shell hit. _How could they just write him off like that! _

Kirby was stuck in the Evac Hospital waiting on his shoulder to mend. Another week, the doctor told him, and he could rejoin his buddies. Normally William G. would have been chasing every skirt he could get close to; but not this time. His heart was not in the chase. Everyday Kirby came by and sat with the Sarge. At first Kirby would read him the paper. But the paper never changed. Re-reading the same good news in the Stars and Stripes got old very fast. So Kirby began to check-out a book from the hospital library and just mindlessly drone on for hours at the sergeant's bedside.

The doctors insisted that the sergeant couldn't hear Kirby. Kirby didn't care what they said. _He knew what they didn't. He knew that the Sarge could hear. The Sarge could always hear Kirby._ _There wasn't a time that Kirby had tried to lay in plans that the Sarge didn't hear about them. What made them think it was any different now?_

Today William G. found himself reading an army field manual. At times he actually began to listen to what he was reading. _When had he been taught this stuff? Back in boot camp in Jersey? _He looked down at his sergeant.

"The only stuff that ever really counted I learned from you." The BAR man lit a smoke and drew in deeply trying to stifle the emotions he felt building. "Sarge, I just know you're in there. You gotta tell me how to help you get out." Kirby laughed at himself. "That's good William G. The man's totally out of it, and you want him to tell you how to fix things."

Kirby finished his smoke and went back to reading. As he looked down he noticed Saunders' eyes moving under his eyelids. His heart began to pound with excitement. Then he heard the doctor's voice - "Just a physical reaction - nothing to get excited about."

-----------------------------------

_He could hear voices. He could feel their presence. But he could not reach through the void that separated him from them. The pain was less and at times, it wasn't there at all. His head ached - worse than any migraine Kirby had ever given him. _

_Kirby. He had left him behind while he tried to get to better cover. He had to find Kirby! Had he left him alone out on the field? _

_There was a voice droning on in his ear. He could hear the words, but they made no sense. They were like a fly buzzing annoyingly near your ear as you were trying to sleep. The noise was irritating. He rose to try to find its source and make it stop. But he could never seem to rise far enough out of the blackness he was lost in. _

_Then he smelled smoke; the chemical sulfur smell of a burnt match. Oh God, he was on fire! Not fire! Extreme panic swept over him. He had been burned right after the Normandy_ _invasion. Several weeks had been spent in an Evac Hospital as his hands and arms healed. The pain was unbearable at first, even with the morphine he was sure they pumped into him. His panic grew as the smell continued. Then something deep within him clicked. He recognized the smell. _

_That wasn't just any kind of smoke - it was cigarette smoke. The panic subsided and was replaced by a craving. A strong, irresistible craving. What he wouldn't do for a smoke. A smoke to calm his nerves. A smoke to take the edge off his hunger when there wasn't any meal. A smoke to calm a buddy or yourself when things got bad. He wanted a smoke now. And he wanted it bad. He struggled to climb out of the black hole he was stuck in. _

-----------------------------------

Kirby stomped out the cigarette on the floor. Almost time for dinner. They'd be after him to move along so that they could tube-feed Saunders. He wasn't sure why they made him leave. Maybe just to get some peace and quiet from his constant intoning of the latest library hot seller. He was feeling surly and he didn't want to go. He lit up another smoke. He looked at Saunders. The eyes were still rattling around under the eyelids. _Maybe he was dreaming._ Saunders seemed to be breathing heavy.

Panic began to grow in Kirby. He thought of the lieutenant. Hanley had taken Saunders' injury pretty hard. "If only he had died" he said "To see him there as a vegetable the rest of his life… it's too much. If he's lucky, he'll…" The lieutenant couldn't say it. _He'll what,_ thought Kirby, _… die?_

Kirby leaned closer to the sergeant. _Was this how people with no brains died? Did they just have a heart attack and pass on? _Kirby was torn between getting help and letting the Sarge go.

Kirby took a big drag on the smoke to calm his nerves as he looked across at the only man who had truly been more of a father to him than his own biological dad. Kirby held his breath. Saunders' lips were moving. Kirby bent down and exhaled suddenly as the need for air in his lungs outweighed the shock and hope in his mind. The blast of air sent a cloud of second-hand smoke into Saunders' face. The man in the bed breathed in the smoke and smiled.

Kirby sat bolt upright. _OK, is that just a physical reaction?_ Kirby took the cigarette and placed it between Saunders' lips. The man in the bed breathed in and then exhaled slowly as Kirby pulled the cigarette away, sending out a long cloud of gray. Kirby watched the smoke trail up into thin air and then put the cigarette back into Saunders' mouth, leaving it hang there.

"Sarge" He spoke into the sergeant's ear, "Sarge, are you awake?"

Muffled sounds came out of the man's mouth as he drew another breath of smoke into his lungs.

"Sarge!" Kirby yelled while shaking the man, "Can ya hear me?" The cigarette fell out of Saunders' mouth and onto his chest.

"Sht" came a dry and gravelly voice. The man in the bed tried to move his arms to push away the burning embers.

Kirby retrieved the cigarette off Saunders' chest, brushing off the embers and ash and put it in his own mouth for safekeeping. He stared down at the man in the bed. The man's eyes were open, staring into space.

"Water" came a soft, gravelly voice.

"Sure, Sarge - but just a little bit. It's been a while since you've really had anything." Kirby held the man's head in one arm and struggled with the other, his sore shoulder protesting the movement.

"Kirby," Saunders said in a soft voice, "ya OK?"

"Yeah, Sarge. I'm fine. Just banged up my shoulder." Saunders nodded.

"'m I OK?"

Kirby looked down at his sergeant. The man's eyes were closed, his body a rainbow of colors. Kirby didn't know the answer.

"I don't know, Sarge. You're in the Evac Hospital and you been kind of out of it for a few days." Kirby cringed at his words - more than a few days. "How do you feel?"

Saunders opened his eyes as if to make an assessment of himself. After a moment he whispered, "Evr'thn's blurry. C'n hear OK, I guess. Tired. Need a smoke. Sore." Then he closed his eyes again.

"Sarge?"

"Hmmn…"

"You're still with me right?"

Saunders opened his eyes and gave a weak smile. He could hear the worry in Kirby's voice. Saunders guessed he must be pretty bad off. "Yeah. Still here. Jus' tired."

"Sarge," Kirby jumped up. "Don't move. I'm gonna go get a doctor!" Kirby ran off into the depths of the hospital calling out for a doctor.

Sauners shook his head and sighed. "Where 'm I supposed to go?" He said to no one. "Up in smoke?"


End file.
